Summer trip from vancouver to grand canyon

[Kendrakubin]

Hello all, my boyfriend and I are planning on doing a 2 week long roadtrip this summer and just wanted some advice. We live in Vancouver BC and We are planning to go to cannon beach (just to sleep) san fran, yosemite, los angeles, disneyland, carlsbad, grand canyon then home! Do you think we'll have enough time to do all of this? How much should we bring for food? We were planning on bringing around 500-600 on gas is that enough? Any must see places. Anything is helpful thanks!

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Actually, I have more questions than answers for you so far. When you say that you're going to stop in Cannon Beach OR "just to sleep", does that mean that you intend to try to sleep on the beach or in your car, or will you be checking into a motel or park for the evening?

It would then be another 700 miles to San Francisco. You weren't really planning on trying to drive that in a single day were you? About 550 miles is close to the safe limit of what can be driven in a day, significantly less if you plan to drive along the coast rather than just head inland from Cannon Beach to I-5 for the rest of the drive south.

By 'Carlsbad' did you mean Carlsbad the town in California or the Caverns in New Mexico? That would make a significant difference. If you mean the caverns, then you're looking at a minimum of about 4700 miles and nine days of nothing but driving. That would only leave you five or six days to actually see stuff along the way. That seems like an awful lot of driving for short glimpses of natural wonders such as the Pacific Coast, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon and maybe a day each in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Similarly, the amount of gas you'll need depends on factors we don't know. Besides the uncertainty of which Carlsbad you mean, we have no idea what kind of mileage your car gets and whether it runs on regular, premium or diesel. You can work out the cost using our Fuel Cost Calculator and an average price of say $2.25/gallon (U.S.) for regular unleaded gasoline. Add another 10-20% for premium or diesel.

AZBuck

[Kendrakubin]

For the cannon beach yes just spending a night there we're camping there. We aren't driving straight to san fran from cannon beavh we're stopping in eureka, CA. Yes I meant Carlsbad, CA. We're spending around a day each at each place. We're spending around a day and a half at yosemite + grand canyon

[Southwest Dave]

Your trip is certainly doable, it's just a case of whether it will fun for you personally. You will have 7 to 8 days of driving and you wish to spend a total of 3 days at Yosemite and Grand canyon (bare minimum for Yosemite) so that leaves just 3 days to divide between SF, LA and visiting Disneyland so that's going to feel pretty rushed among full on days of driving. I guess it's a case of whether or not you have a main priority for the trip, personally I would skip LA and Disneyland on the basis that you will have too little time there to make it worthwhile, although in truth it doesn't appeal to me at all but it's your trip. The advantage would be making a more relaxed trip, you could spend more time along the coast, perhaps visit the Redwoods and exit Yosemite across the beautiful Sierra Nevada on Tioga Pass (CA120) and head towards Grand canyon via Death valley and Vegas and have a more relaxing trip home. Just a thought.

[Kendrakubin]

Thank you!